were in their night dresses, the men in pajamas,
none pausing to dress, all convinced that their last hour had come.
Ten minutes later Caruso was seen seated on his valise in the middle
of the street. Many of the others had rushed to open squares or other
places of supposed safety. Even then it was difficult to avoid the
debris falling from the crumbling walls.

Several of those stopping at the Oaks were awakened by plaster from
the ceilings falling on their bed and had barely time to flee for
their lives. One singer was seen standing in the street, barefoot, and
clad only in his underwear, but clutching a favorite violin which he
carried with him in his flight. Rossi, though almost in tears, was
heard trying his voice at a corner near the Palace hotel.

* * * * *

A. W. Hussey, who went to the Hall of Justice on the morning of the
disaster, told how at the direction of a policeman whom he did not
know, he had cut the arteries in the wrists of a man pinioned under
timbers at St. Katherine hotel.

According to the statement made by Hussey the man was begging to be
killed and the policeman shot at him, but his aim was defective and
the bullet went wide of the mark. The officer then handed Hussey a
knife with instructions to cut the veins in the suffering man's
wrists, and Hussey obeyed orders to the letter.

* * * * *

A story was told of one young girl who had followed for two days the
body of her father, her only relative. It had been taken from a house
in Mission street to an undertaker's shop just after the quake. The
fire drove her out with her charge, and it was placed in Mechanics'
Pavilion.

That went, and it had rested for a day at the Presidio, waiting
burial. With many others she wept on the border of the burial area,
while the women cared for her. That was truly a tragic and pathetic
funeral.

In the commission house of C. D. Bunker a rescuer named Baker was
killed while trying to get a dead body from the ruins. Other rescuers
heard the pitiful wail of a little child, but were unable to get near
the point from which the cry issued. Soon the onrushing fire ended the
cry and the men turned to other tasks.

Hundreds of firemen and rescuers were prostrated, the strain of the
continued fight in the face of the awful calamity proving more than
any man could stand. In the crowds at many points people fainted and
in some instances dropped dead a